Trump Changes Plans on MLK Day Visit To African American History Museum
— -- President-elect Donald Trump is no longer expected to visit the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture in observance of Martin Luther King Day, senior level transition sources tell ABC News.
Senior sources initially said Trump would visit the museum, but ABC has learned that the visit was removed from his calendar due to scheduling issues and was not fully planned out.
Trump is expected to visit the museum sometime after he assumes office, the sources say. He will commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Washington, D.C., in another way, though details were not immediately available today.
News of the planned visit on Martin Luther King Day came Saturday as Trump drew ire from critics over a Twitter attack against Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis.
Trump zeroed in on Lewis in tweets Saturday after the Democratic representative said in an interview with NBC that he doesn't see Trump as a "legitimate president" following Russian interference in the election.
Trump in back-to-back tweets said Lewis was "falsely complaining about the election," and called him "all talk, talk, talk -- no action or results!"
Lewis is one of the last surviving central organizing figures of the U.S. civil rights movement and was beaten by police in a march for voting rights on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
Lewis introduced the original legislation to found the Smithsonian museum in 1988, and then fought for 15 years until the proposal was signed into law by President George W. Bush. He is also featured prominently in the museum's exhibits, including in photos of him speaking at the 1963 March on Washington upon his arrest during the Freedom Rides for civil rights in 1961.
ABC has reached out to the Smithsonian and the Trump transition team for comment.
This story has been updated since its original publication to reflect the change in plans for visiting the African American museum.
